Oct. 20, 2018
07:23 am JST

Oct. 20, 2018
07:43 am JST

So it's not about helping keep the cost of daily necessities down, not about subsidising small and medium sized retailers - it's all about promoting cashless.

Which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but why can't they just be honest and up-front about what they're doing?

Typical mealy-mouthed politicians.

Just make the tax rate on food, children's clothing, medicine and education 0%. That's one problem solved.

Then tell certain chains that there is no need to make me sign a credit slip when I use a prepaid card to pay a ¥287 (or whatever) bill to save on fiddling with change. That will help make cashless easier.

Oct. 20, 2018
10:34 am JST

There is a far easier way to do this. Simply cut a cheque for ¥50,000 (or whatever amount) at the start of the year to anyone who reported a low income in the previous year. It will be a way of refunding consumption tax, and it will allow people to decide for themselves what is a 'necessity'.

There is no need for the wealthy to receive this rebate and no need to set up a huge administrative structure to manage the system and decide which products will be deemed necessities.

I used to live in a country that had a system where consumption tax was not levied on childrens clothes or books. Eventually multinational food companies began to lobby to include childrens food. What is children's food you ask? Well, if you bought 5 donuts you paid full consumption tax on the entire purchase, but if you bought a pack of 6 or more you paid no consumption tax at all. The bizarre logic being that someone buying 6 donuts is probably buying them for a family which will include kids. It's a nightmare when you have a complex system like this with corruptable government bureaucrats making these decisions.

Oct. 21, 2018
12:38 am JST

M3M3M3 - only someone that thinks logically could come up with that and as you know, logic is non-existent in Japan. Also, the LDP is supported by big business and the wealthy so clearly they are pandering to their base although I haven’t heard them mention rebates for the elderly....YET!

Oct. 21, 2018
12:44 am JST

That's why a tax on gasoline is better than some guy sitting in a toll booth.

Eventually, all highways in Japan will be ETC only, or so that’s the current plan, so those toll collectors will be made redundant. A tax on Gasoline won’t happen now that online shopping has become a huge part of life here. The government is smart enough to know that if they increase the tax any further they will hear it from the majority of the population. That’s partly how the DPJ got elected 10 years ago, they said they’d cut the gas tax.

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